Whether for advancing fundamental science or fulfilling national security needs, scientists and engineers must prepare the instruments onboard satellites to withstand damaging forces in orbit. Lawrence Livermore researchers are pioneering a new method for engineering satellite telescopes to endure the rigors of space.
During launch, satellite instruments experience immense acceleration forces, and once orbiting at thousands of kilometers per hour, they are bombarded by intense solar radiation in the frigid conditions of space. For precisely machined and calibrated telescopes that perform terrestrial imaging and astronomical measurements, maintaining the precise alignment of telescope components is all the more necessary to ensure proper functioning.
A Livermore team earned a 2025 R&D 100 Award for a new, more efficient process for fabricating and deploying telescopes on satellite fleets. Conventional reflective telescopes comprise multiple mirrors and lenses to collect and concentrate light on a sensor. These many elements risk falling out of careful alignment due to the forces associated with launch and solar radiation-induced temperature swings—often hundreds of degrees Celsius in difference—that cause repeated material deformation. The Livermore team addressed these challenges by introducing the monolithic telescope: a single, robust, modularizable optic offering significant size, weight, power, and cost advantages over conventional, multi-element telescopes.
All-in-One Performance
Many space-based optical telescopes follow a Cassegrain design, which focuses light using two separate elements: a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror. From fabrication to deployment, the production process for Cassegrain telescopes requires several testing and recalibration phases. After confirming the designs for mirrors and lenses, engineers individually machine each optical element and perform extensive quality checks. They proceed to carefully install the elements in position to ensure optimal functioning while double- and triple-checking their relative alignment. During the next stage, they place the optical unit into its housing and hook up necessary electronics, all the while conducting further optical tests and element realignment. Finally, assembly teams subject the unit to environmental testing to evaluate how it holds up to vibrations, heavy radiation, and the vacuum of space. Throughout these stages, optical realignment makes for a time- and labor-intensive process that itself can introduce errors.
Monolithic optics, by contrast, consist of one fused silica block precisely shaped to perform the functions of Cassegrain telescopes all in a single, compact element. Moreover, their adjustable design allows them to meet different volume requirements while performing different optical functions. Monoliths need only be shaped and adjusted once during manufacturing; they remain “shelf stable” through to the final integration with the satellite housing because they have no separate elements to fall out of alignment.
To operate in space, satellite telescopes first must rocket through Earth’s atmosphere—a challenging obstacle for delicate machinery. The Livermore team computationally analyzed how the monolithic optic would respond to launch acceleration forces up to 60 times the strength of Earth’s gravitational pull. In this extreme environment, random vibrations can damage optics or cause permanent misalignment without the proper engineering precautions. To further protect the monolithic optic, researchers installed a novel elastomer material that acts similar to a suspension system, maintaining a set pressure between the bulk monolithic optic and its housing regardless of its orientation in space.
Once deployed and operating in orbit, satellite instruments become susceptible to further optical deviation. Structural and optical materials can experience frequent expansion and contraction as they move between shadow and powerful solar radiation unfiltered by Earth’s atmosphere. Monolithic telescopes are made exclusively from fused silica, a material that is highly resilient to deformation from solar radiation because of its low coefficient of thermal expansion. Nevertheless, temperature unevenness as small as 1 Kelvin within the monolith could cause the optic’s index of refraction to shift, potentially degrading the quality of the final image until the optic returns to thermal equilibrium. The team performed extensive finite element analyses and applied a custom ray-tracing code to predict how minute temperature changes could impact optical performance. These numeric methods validated the effectiveness of their optical design, which successfully focuses all of the light within the targeted wavelength band onto a single point.
Flexible Builds, Fast Launches
In addition to the technical advantages of hardening optics against misalignment in operation, monolithic telescopes significantly reduce the overall time and cost resources required to launch a new space-based imaging system. Space-based telescopes are designed to capture images at specific magnification or within a particular frequency band. Conventional telescopes often vary in weight and size because the individual optical elements in Cassegrain telescopes must scale with performance demands. A recurring challenge is ensuring conventional satellites with Cassegrain telescopes remain within size and weight guidelines.
A major benefit of monolithic telescopes is their flexibility of integration; engineers can design them to perform different optical functions while meeting the volume restrictions of different housings and satellite vehicles. This capability is advantageous given the proliferation of modularized space missions that require satellite components to fit predetermined geometries, and monolithic telescopes are the first product in the optics market to offer such interchangeability. Lawrence Livermore partners with optics manufacturer Optimax Systems to fabricate monolithic telescopes according to the Laboratory design. Livermore’s space team then builds the monoliths into small satellite payloads that include imaging electronics and focus mechanisms, and then integrates the payload into the satellite bus, which provides the power, communications, and flight control infrastructure for the telescope in orbit.
Since monolithic telescopes do not fall out of alignment, assembly teams are not burdened with frequent interruptions to ensure individual elements remain aligned. Accounting for this more efficient production process, the monolithic telescopes team estimates the technology could reduce the cost of producing small-aperture telescopes by a factor of ten. “This technology is proving itself to be a significant market disruptor. Lowering the cost barriers to new launches allows for more missions to advance national scientific and security efforts,” says John Ganino, the associate program leader for space hardware at Livermore.
With commercial space launches becoming more frequent and rockets becoming more powerful, the most important parameter for researchers to optimize is the volume the telescope will occupy. Since monoliths can hold exceptionally tight optical tolerances, they are typically made much smaller in volume than traditional Cassegrain alternatives. Monolithic telescopes’ design flexibility and potential to streamline satellite production has made the technology particularly attractive to makers of small, modular satellite fleets. While fused silica optics can be heavy options for large-aperture designs, in many cases their other advantages outweigh the risk associated with deploying multi-element telescopes. When integrated into small satellite systems, monolithic optics aid researchers by observing the cosmos, surveying Earth’s surface, or tracking space debris. Livermore researchers are now looking to solidify large-aperture designs whose increased light-collection area raises achievable imaging resolution, enabling further terrestrial data gathering as well as studies of exoplanets, dark matter, and black holes.
The durability and adjustability of Lawrence Livermore’s monolithic telescope design has already drawn interest from multiple external parties. A four-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Lawrence Livermore and satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital resulted in the development of a payload with two monolithic telescopes that launched on a Terran Orbital satellite in 2021, called GEOStare SV2, to demonstrate the performance of the optics in space. A monolithic payload is also being delivered to Firefly Space for its Blue Ghost-2 mission to lunar orbit, where it will image the lunar surface in high resolution and track objects in the Earth–Moon system. In the years following the GEOStare SV2 launch, researchers have continued expanding monolithic telescopes’ use cases, platforms, and customer base. The Laboratory’s efforts to identify industry partners for the technology earned an honorable mention in the 2026 Federal Laboratory Consortium Excellence in Technology Transfer Award competition. A number of Lawrence Livermore CRADA partners, including Optimax, True Anomaly, and others, are now transitioning monolithic telescope designs to serial production for larger satellite constellations.
—Elliot Jaffe
For further information contact John Ganino (925) 423-7855 (ganino1 [at] llnl.gov (ganino1[at]llnl[dot]gov)) or Brian Bauman (925) 423-6592 (bauman3 [at] llnl.gov (bauman3[at]llnl[dot]gov)).
